


110%

by eruthiel



Category: MarsCorp (Podcast)
Genre: Brainwashing, Gen, Introspection, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 06:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7704745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eruthiel/pseuds/eruthiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mars to Hob: get the fuck over it already! You're bringing everyone down!</p>
            </blockquote>





	110%

**Author's Note:**

> Two important songs: [100% (110% Remix) by Angelspit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ByqwZQV40Y) for Bonnie; [Dreams So Real by Metric](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNYlO5bXf7Q) for Hob.
> 
> So once again, I know this is really premature and sure to be thoroughly jossed, since we still haven't really met her. But I'm in love with Bonnie's announcements & her social media persona, and just wanted to speculate a bit about what's going on in her lovely, awful head. Hope you enjoy! I'd love to hear any thoughts you might have <333

Bonnie watches re-indoctrination tapes for fun. She knows all the answers by heart. _What are you doing?_ Breathing. _What are you breathing?_ Air. _Whose air?_ She smiles. She has been told that she has a nice smile.

The Earth woman doesn't smile. Not really, not like she means it. In all this time, Bonnie hasn't seen her smile properly - not even during the company song, not even after an obituary. Jim says she's smiling in her own way, and happy in her own way, and loves MarsCorp in her own way. Bonnie knows for a fact that "doing things your own way" isn't in the employee code of conduct. If you must have your own way of doing things, that way should be the correct way, the MarsCorp way. Desire should align with obligation.

 _Your youngest daughter, Kate._ Yes, sir? _Last year she got sick._ Yes, sir. _Company doctors spent time and resources treating her._ She didn't - _Doesn't matter. You're indebted by the very fact of your birth. And if you're lucky, if you work hard every day, then you will repay that debt by the time you take your last breath of MarsCorp air. Isn't that great?_

Bonnie likes that bit, but the turnarounds are what bring her to tears: sometimes stomping her feet in fits of silent giggles; sometimes trembling, clutching the arms of her chair, heart swelling up with the memory of her own youth conditioning. Oh thank you, thank you! Thank you for air, for meat, for work, for a second chance! She looks for real remorse in their faces. She wants to live in that moment forever, the moment of surrender, of acceptance. Love chills through her anew. Bonnie has never fallen in love with another employee, but watching them grovel in the re-indoctrination room is the closest she gets.

She would like to see the Earth woman grovel. Then she'd smile - the correct way. She'd have a nice smile, not as nice as Bonnie's, but, you know. Nobody's perfect.

 _We all have to pull our weight. And we all have different weights to pull. What are you?_ Red. _That's right. Aren't you lucky? You're a valued employee. That is to say, MarsCorp has valued you precisely and calculated the most efficient way to extract that value. You would never want to be a Blue, would you? Everyone looking to you for orders, lying awake all night, worrying if you've made the right call._ No. I wouldn't want to be a Blue.  _And you wouldn't want to be a stupid Green, no mind of your own, always being told exactly what to do and think. You wouldn't want that, would you?_ No, I wouldn't want that. Of course not _._

That's the Earth woman's problem, Bonnie thinks: no citizen status. How are you meant to know what she is, what she's good for? It's impossible to treat her right. If she were Blue or Gold, at least Bonnie would feel better about doing her bidding. Any other rank and Bonnie would be able to ignore her, as she does with most of her fellow Reds. (Greens don't register in her mind as individuals, even when they're cutting her hair or cleaning her booth - Jim is the only one she knows by name - and Oranges barely register as existing at all, beyond a vague sense that _somebody_ must be low enough to buy those nasty cardboard carbstrips from the vendibots at ten for a token.)

But no, the Earth woman just has to be special. The only person on Mars who is simply a human being, unqualified by the system. It drives Bonnie crazy.

And therein lies the heart of it: Hob is a relic from another world, a fossil brought to life. She's seen things that have no place on modern Mars. Generations of isolation have purified the workforce, and now she's dirtied it with her backwards Earthy brain and her yucky Earthy feelings. Jim says she's grieving. She can't let go of the people she used to know, the people whose lives she overslept and missed, which is - obviously - hilarious. Who _grieves?_

But the joke is wearing thin. The Earth woman is awake now, rise and shine, time to seize the day and get to work with a smile, better late than never. Soft terrestrial dreams give way to hard interplanetary reality. Mars to Hob: get the fuck over it already! You're bringing everyone down!

It's 3am. She often loses time like this, watching the tapes. Slacking off.

With her thumb on the base-wide address button, Bonnie leans forward. "Attention, employees. Just a reminder that dreams are meaningless, and not to be dwelt on. Make a special effort to forget any unconscious hallucinations you may experience tonight. If you accidentally remember something, keep it to yourself! Nobody wants to hear about your stupid brain's boring delusions and heretical memories of things that can never be.

"Sleep tight, and don't let the starbugs bite!"


End file.
